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FRIDAY’S PUZZLE — June 25 is a big day for Robin Schulman. This puzzle, constructed with Byron Walden, is her debut as a New York Times constructor. Congratulations! Could anything be more exciting?

Well, I have some other news. It may not quite live up to the thrill of a first published crossword, but I’ll let you know anyway. On second thought, you have to dig it out for yourself. There’s a secret message in this puzzle. Read the starting letters of each Across clue, and you’ll see it.

Now you understand why we have a rebus puzzle on a Friday. That’s not so unusual, by the way. Thursday grids are the natural habitat of the elusive rebi, but such puzzles have appeared on every day of the week, including Monday (although I can’t think of any that have been associated with such a lovely story). Once again, congratulations Robin and Byron. You start your official life together with an interlocking collaboration. That has to bode well.

I have a fondness for puzzles with acrostic messages in the clues. Once you discover the secret, you can look back and see how the constraints push the creativity to a higher level. “Engaged, and then some” is a charming E clue, especially for this puzzle. PALPS are appendages some insects (or mollusks or crustaceans) use to grope for food, but how to clue that starting with B? “Bug detection device” is perfect. Only a few like, perhaps “Good place for a smoke,” seem even a little forced, but only in retrospect. That’s amazing.

There are some gems in the Downs too. “Punctilious type” is an I DOTTER. “February 4th” is one of those self-referential clues that tend to trip me up no matter how many times I encounter them, and this is an outstanding example. The romantic “Dear” gets a literal answer. “Teen drivers” for LIBIDOS is perhaps the best of all.

Great story. Terrific puzzle. Let’s hear from the couple who put it all together.

Notes from the constructors

Before we even set the date, we started discussing the idea of making a puzzle for our wedding guests. We started discussing possible wedding-related themes coming back from our friends’ wedding. We talked about the “something old, something new, …” theme, but it had been done before. We talked about a rebus with rings, and soon landed on the idea of a rebus with I DO. Driving back, we set about finding as many good entries containing IDO as we could. Byron thought of MAID OF ORLEANS, but Robin said it should be MAID OF HONOR. Once we had that entry, we knew it was a cool idea to run with. We knew the Abba song would be a big challenge, and we both loved the idea of CHILI DOG. We approached Will Shortz at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament, and he was game for “saving the date” provided he liked the puzzle.

Right away, the central entry proved tough. Byron started coming up with possible words to make the center work. The first one that used LARD going across. Robin nixed that idea. The second one used FATTY and then some disease. Those were self-nixing. Finally, the central part came together plus the MAID OF HONOR corner, so we felt sure we could finish by that point, and eventually we did.

Then came the cluing. The secret message in the Across clues posed an extra challenge. It was fun, but it would have been much more challenging for not much extra payoff to do the Downs in the same manner. Robin’s legal background really helped with the REBUT clue, which would have been nice even without matching the first letter constraint. After one revised corner (the lower left), Will accepted the puzzle. The syntax of the message was somewhat geared toward the original fill, but only 56 Across became really tough to clue in normal clue language.

If there are folks disappointed by the lack of a message in the Downs, then they should just compose a 37-letter message and reclue the Downs to fit it. It’s harder than it seems. We loved having our first collaboration on the first day of our marriage. A big thanks to Will, and we hope everyone enjoys working on the puzzle as much as we did.

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Welcome to our conversation about word games. Here you'll find a new blog post for each day's crossword plus a bonus post for the Variety puzzle. Along with discussion about the day's challenge, you'll get backstage insights about puzzlemaking and occasional notes from The Times's puzzlemaster, Will Shortz.

Deb Amlen is a humorist and puzzle constructor whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Onion and Bust Magazine. Her books, “It's Not P.M.S., It's You” and “Create Your Life Lists” are available where all fine literature is sold.

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About Numberplay, the Puzzle Suite For Math Lovers of All Ages

Numberplay is a puzzle suite that will be presented in Wordplay every Monday. The puzzles, which are inspired by many sources and are reported by Gary Antonick, are generally mathematical or logical problems, with occasional forays into physics and other branches of science. While written for adults, many of the concepts here are suitable for and can be enjoyed by math students of all ages.

Gary Antonick, who has created or edited over 100 logic and math puzzles for The New York Times, secretly believes every math problem can be solved using circles and straight lines. He is a visiting scholar at Stanford University, where he studies mathematical problem solving.

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